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The following references may be useful when improving this article in the future:

Lucy Jones (28 February 2014). "Nirvana, Neil Young, St Vincent – 10 Stunning Songs About the Northern Lights". NME. Archived from the original on 1 March 2017. Retrieved 25 January 2025.

Aurora

Is an aurora dangerous? Is an aurora dangerous? 122.161.52.154 (talk) 08:14, 8 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I think you are in the wrong place. This section is for discussing the article itself, not asking questions about the article. To answer your question, no an aurora is not dangerous. Luna Wagner (talk) 12:08, 3 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Use one plural

Currently the article uses both plural forms (aurorae and auroras). I am of the opinion that it would be better to use only one plural. My preference is auroras, but either is fine. Luna Wagner (talk)

Agreed, and since auroras seems preferred outside of scientific context and was already the dominating plural form in the article I just changed the other form 'aurorae' to 'auroras' for sake of consistency.--Yoctera (talk) 20:44, 4 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

"The Virginian Lights??"

There is a new section of the Aurora page called The Virginian Lights that has no sources, and I'm skeptical that it is entirely AI or a hoax. It has a lot of language that is irrelevant and unscientific for an article of this nature, and all of the images are from June 2024. Online searches yielded no results on the topic-- not even the Wikipedia page itself showed up when using quotations. It's very odd to me, but I could be mistaken.

I really don't know enough about this topic at all to confirm. Is anyone able to take a look? MayaIn3D (talk) 01:08, 11 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Deleted No citations & no results in a Google search means WP:DONTHOAX applies. Peaceray (talk) 02:44, 11 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Etymology

Does the Borealis part of the name really come from the god of the north wind, or simply because Borealis means northern? Opinions, please. Skeptic2 (talk) 10:51, 5 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

"Boreal," meaning of the north, is itself derived from the god of wind. I can't find accessible sources on whether the coiner of the term (be it Gassendi or Galileo) was specifically thinking of the gods or not.

The etymology section of the page is overall due for someone with more expertise to give it a look-over. I've done what I can with some cursory research to clear up contradiction and redundancy, but I'm not especially informed on the subject itself.

This source is in particular need of someone who can access the full thing, as it could help clear up the confusion of who coined the name: https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1029/EO059i012p00994 LonelySpaceEgg (talk) 07:55, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

File:Church of light.jpg

Recently, File:Church of light.jpg was delisted as a featured picture because it is composite image of the church and File:Flames in the sky.jpg. However, I don't believe this alone disqualifies it from being a good image. Additionally, I disagree with @Remsense's revert message claiming that it "totally exaggerates and thus misrepresents the actual appearance of the primarily visual phenomenon". The phenomenon remains unchanged, as does the background. The only alteration lies in the foreground, while everything else—the shape of the light, the colors, the size—remains consistent. By that logic, we would also need to deprecate images like The Blue Marble or Webb's First Deep Field as well. –Tobias (talk) 15:58, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Seems like a non-issue. Why is it necessary to have a church in the view? Seasider53 (talk) 16:12, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It isn't necessary in the narrow sense, but the image was and still is useful and representative for the topic. –Tobias (talk) 17:01, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You are very selectively picking examples here—on the contrary, we generally require astronomical objects (e.g. not artificial stitchwork like the deep field or the ground beneath our feet) to have lead images in true color—see Venus, etc. Really, it's a simple principle: we want in line with site guidelines to accurately illustrate a topic, so for visual phenomena like these we want to show what it "actually looks like". Remsense ‥ 论 16:38, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

And this is what the image does. As I already said—there is no alteration to the color, size, or shape. The aurora is still the same as in the original picture. –Tobias (talk) 17:00, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Except… we see less of it with a church in the way. Seasider53 (talk) 17:03, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That's correct, but the striking part is still visible above the church. –Tobias (talk) 17:07, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I suppose this is striating into one of those "why if we don't have to" (i.e. something is wrong under the hood, and that matters to us in an abstract way as concerns the final result) versus "why draw a line in the sand if we don't have to" (i.e. something is wrong with every potential illustration and it is difficult to have airtight definitions we can act on).

Here's a suggestion further attempting to please everyone on either side: why don't we just use File:Flames in the sky.jpg, the original Icelandic aurora used in the photomash? It's even been helpfully linked by the author and by Tobiasi0. Remsense ‥ 论 17:07, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Fine by me. I suggest replacing one of the low-resolution, blurry pictures in the lead montage with this one to avoid cluttering the article with too many images. –Tobias (talk) 17:17, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

See, that's perfect. Whole-heartedly sign off on that. Remsense ‥ 论 17:18, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Amazing, I’ve made the changes and added some other images to the montage. Are you okay with how they are right now? Let me know if there’s anything you'd like to adjust. –Tobias (talk) 17:42, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

All good here! Remsense ‥ 论 18:06, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Makes sense to me. In any case, I wonder if the image of the church is a real photo. Looks like CGI to me. Skeptic2 (talk) 17:20, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It's a real church. Seasider53 (talk) 17:38, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The church exists like this if that's what you mean. I don't see any obvious signs why the foreground should be CGI here. –Tobias (talk) 17:46, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Seen from the surface of mars

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasa-observes-first-visible-light-auroras-at-mars/

not sure if significant enough to be worth mentioning though.©Geni (talk) 22:12, 14 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]